Ulga, Sorrow Man, and the Mellon Collie
by Perian Swan
Summary: What happens when Saruman, an Orc, and a giant dog meet a family in our world and go RV-ing with them in search of Bigfoot? A story of romance, adventure, and the moral downfall of a once great Wizard.
1. Waiting in the Weeds

Hi, reader! Thanks for checking out my story. A quick note before it begins: The story's timeline is based in book canon, as opposed to movie canon. It's set late in the year 2850 of the Third Age, which is forty years before Bilbo Baggins's birth, according to the Tale of Years in the _Lord of the Rings_ appendices. The Tale of Years and Peter Jackson's _The Hobbit_ movies have _just_ a few differences, one of these being the timing of two related events: Gandalf's visit to Dol Guldur, in which he discovers that Sauron is indeed residing there and planning to find the Rings; and the departure of Sauron's spirit to Mordor for the final time. In the movies, both these events happen quite close together, certainly well within the span of a year (and more likely the span of a few days). In the book timeline, Gandalf's visit takes place ninety-one years before the year of Sauron's departure and the events of _The Hobbit._ I've chosen to adopt this timeline for the story, although there will still be plenty of nods throughout to things that happen in Peter Jackson's two Middle-earth trilogies.

* * *

 **Chapter One: Waiting in the Weeds**

Ulga crouched inside a small patch of thorny bushes some yards away from a faint path, watching and waiting. It was an uncomfortable position, but she hoped it would be worth it. So far there wasn't much to see through the network of gnarled twigs, other than late afternoon sunshine on long, yellow grasses that whipped in the wind, making a gentle, melancholy music if she listened closely. Above were what seemed like leagues and leagues of pale blue sky in every direction, interrupted by nothing except the aforementioned gnarled twigs poking her in the face and obstructing her vision. She peered far into the distance, southwards, causing the twigs to fade out of focus until they were only blurry, transparent shapes she barely noticed. On the horizon she could just see the long, softly curving line of the Ered Nimrais, its peaks' famed majestic purple colors bleached pale by distance.

She shifted her position slightly, to better accommodate the muscles that had begun to ache from staying in one place too long, and she felt the thorns push against her. They didn't bother her much; she had good, thick skin.

Suddenly her pointed ears pricked. There were voices approaching on her left. She wriggled further into the brush, trying to make herself as small and invisible as possible, not an easy feat considering her size; she'd always been rather large-boned. Being seen could be dangerous.

The voices, two males of the race of Men, she guessed, grew louder and more distinct as they neared her, along with the muted thud of their horses' hooves, moving at a leisurely pace. Somewhere under the curiosity and tension in her mind, she felt herself sigh. It had been so long since she'd had a horse.

She craned her neck cautiously to look at them and noticed that they were dressed in simple, thick, warm brown clothing, somewhat travel-worn. They both had light blond hair that reached past their shoulders and caught the ever-present breeze. Their tanned faces were pinkened with faint sunburns on the skin of their noses and cheeks. These faces were so similar in bone structure as well as coloring that she guessed the possessors of them to be brothers. She listened with interest, hungrily trying to pick up their conversation.

"Tell me, brother, what was it you saw?" Ha! She'd been right. It was no easy feat to tell when one Human was related to another. Each Human had looked so much like all the others to her at first, especially those from Rohan and the regions near its borders. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned, each and every one of them. But her eyes were beginning to learn all the little fascinating ways to tell them apart. Things like face shapes and jawlines, smiles, the curves of noses in profiles, little imperfections in skins, the way one Human might have eyes like she had once heard the sea described, pensive grey-blue, and another could have eyes blue like the sky on a cloudless morning in early spring, and yet another pair of eyes could be blue like the sky after dusk, dark and immeasurably deep… Ulga liked eyes. Even though she was currently hiding from them.

Ulga carefully pulled a pesky branch out of her line of sight and scrutinized the brothers' faces now, looking for differences. One had hair that was just a little shorter and darker than the other's, as well as a short beard. The other was beardless, but he seemed to make up for the lack with his prominent, angular eyebrows, which looked strangely out of place with his fair skin and hair. Even so, the primary difference between these young men seemed to be in their countenances. The one with the beard seemed softer to her somehow, more likely to be compassionate. She thought his eyes were kind.

"I saw, going by on horses, two very ugly old men," said the Eyebrow Brother.

"I say! How very unimpressive. What about them was so memorable to you?" inquired the Soft Brother curiously. Ulga studied his face and voice as he spoke. She decided he was very cute.

"Certainly their appearances did little to elicit my admiration. One was tall, and the other short. Both had grey, bushy, unkempt hair and beards. I even fancied I saw a birds' nest, with birds and all, on the short one's head!"

"How strange," said the Soft Brother, wrinkling his alabaster brow endearingly. (Just imagine what everyone back home would think if they knew she spied on Humans and sometimes even thought they were cute!)

"The tall one wore a strange hat, wide-brimmed and pointed at the top. He was the primary speaker. And what he spoke of was a great danger."

The Soft, Cute Brother slowed then stopped his horse as if in surprise and concern, conveniently quite near Ulga. She hardly dared breathe. (Let the reader draw her own conclusions on whether this sudden abatement in Ulga's respiration was because she was in very real danger or because the Cute Brother was, in fact, even cuter up close.)

"A great danger?" asked the Cute One slowly. "Go on."

"Do you know of the great abandoned fortress in Mirkwood? Dol Guldur?"

"Yes, I have heard of it."

"They spoke of its…not being abandoned. Of the existence of an evil presence there. Apparently the old men, or the tall one at least, had gone poking around there, where he ought not, and discovered it. But there is more." He said this ominously, but with a small smile, as if he were getting some kind of thrill from the telling of foreboding news.

The unfolding conversation, apart from the attractiveness of the conversers, was piquing Ulga's interest and now she waited for this next bit of information with (yet again) bated breath. It was irrational; very little of what Eyebrows had just said or was likely about to say was news to her.

"You know the gist of the histories. You know of…Sauron," he went on.

"Yes but…" the Cute One shook his head. "The Enemy was destroyed. Long ago. By Isildur." He guessed the drift of where his brother was going, but he was skeptical, even as his face grew pale.

"He was not destroyed. Not according to the old man. The old man said he saw him."

"That is impossible."

"I only report what I heard."

"And you believe the man was in possession of his right mind?"

"He seemed so to me. Elderly and unattractive, yes, but there was a certain sharpness, and a believability about him. His friend, however… He had a strange, rambling air to him. Half the time I could not understand of what he spoke."

"Did you hear anything else of interest?"

"Yes. They spoke of a wise, learned White Wizard, a leader, whom they were seeking with haste to tell their news. Apparently he lives in the fortress of Isengard, near the southwestern borders of Fangorn. They seemed very much to look up to him, to trust his goodness and judgment. I did not know that anyone so great as a Wizard lived so near our lands."

A White Wizard. The idea of him suddenly caught Ulga's fancy. She thought she could imagine him, ancient in knowledge but young and strong and beautiful in face, luminous like the moon. She imagined he would be kind and gentle, in a way her kind was not, in a way even Humankind was not. He would not be so quick to judge someone like her, she was sure. He would _understand_.

The Cute One said nothing in words, but his face communicated much. There was something almost childlike about the fascination on it, the sparkles in his eyes, the way his cheeks regained their color, flushing faintly. It distracted her momentarily but completely from her musings about the mysterious and wonderful White Wizard. After all, this gentleman seemed pretty mysterious and wonderful too, in an entirely different way.

"A Wizard…" he mused. And then, quietly, he actually _giggled_. It was such a pure, sweet sound. Ulga's kind never giggled, so she was almost entirely unprepared for the shock.

She couldn't help it. She squealed quietly. The brothers both froze, and she wanted to slap her own face.

"What was that?" asked Eyebrows.

"It sounded almost…like the deep and powerful grunt of a wild boar."

"Nonsense. There are no wild boars this far from Fangorn or Mirkwood."

The Soft, Cute, Giggly One shrugged his shoulders. "Well, we ought to be on our way; it begins to darken."

It did. Ulga had hardly noticed. It got dark so fast in winter. Not that the dark made it any harder for her sharp eyes to see their way. She felt the wind nip at her skin again. She probably should be getting home; she'd been away long enough. She watched the Cute One and his brother as they moved farther and farther away from her. Going to their own homes, probably. She wondered what those homes were like. Maybe they had families, real families who loved them. Parents who were in love. Perhaps they had wives they loved too.

These thoughts were not good to dwell on. They stung in ways the wind couldn't. But she dwelt on them anyway until the brothers and the sun were long out of sight. Then she crawled out of the bushes, looking all around her cautiously. She saw almost nothing but stars, there were so many of them out here. They winked at her and she was comforted. It was hard to feel too alone among so many friendly little lights. She sniffed the air. Nothing threatening nearby, as far as she could tell. She whistled a long, low note and waited. While she waited, her eyes absently scanned the track the horses had been walking on. They caught something small, flat, and round lying in the dirt. She picked the object up and held it in her hand. She recognized it, but she couldn't give it a name; it had likely fallen off one of the brothers' clothes as he passed, and she'd been too busy staring at their faces to notice. She sniffed it, smiled, and put it in her pocket. Humans with their strange clothes held together by weird little circles…

Just then Ulga looked up to see a small grey shape appear in the dusky distance. It seemed to be moving at an amazing speed. As it neared her, its true size became more apparent. Small it was not. It was gargantuan. It hurtled through the night and then came to a stop next to her. She grinned. Here was her "noble steed". She'd heard a Human use that term once, and had latched onto it herself. The Noble Steed grinned back, or tried to. Really it looked much more like a terrifying grimace. But Ulga understood the meaning. The Steed's huge, powerful tail wagged and it lowered the front of its body onto its forelegs so Ulga could climb more easily up onto its back.

"Let's go home, Warg."

* * *

No promises, because I tend to write very, very slowly and I'm only a couple chapters ahead, and of course I've got real-life stuff that takes up a considerable amount of my time and energy, but I'm going to do my best to post a new chapter each month. Thank you so much for reading :)


	2. It's an Orc Eat Orc World

If you've made it even so far as the second chapter of this nightmare, I respect and thank you (and I also shake my head at you, just a little). In particular I'd like to thank canadiangold, eschscholzia, Grey Day, and FebruarySong, who left such nice reviews on Chapter One :)

Chapter One Recap: We have just met an interesting personage called Ulga who apparently has a thing for spying on humans, and through spying on her spying on humans, we have discovered that an evil exists in the world, and so does a certain White Wizard. Ulga is intrigued, and files this information away in her brain as she heads home.

* * *

 **Chapter Two: It's An Orc Eat Orc World**

Ulga the Orc's "home" was a few days' journey east, in an area of western Mordor near the city of Minas Morgul. Before arriving at her place of residence, she decided to stop at a nearby restaurant to get a bite to eat. Ever since seeing those horses back in Anórien she'd been unable to chase the cravings for one out of her head, but she didn't like the idea of stealing one from a Human. Here she could get some nice Mordorian horse, she hoped.

The restaurant, a dim, noisy, cave-like place with no small number of rats and flies even in the winter, was crowded with Orcs and a few other characters. To tell the truth, they were rather unsavory. Not unlike the food.

Ulga did her best with the generous portion of horse meat she'd been served, but it was so tough and dry, even for her strong, sharp teeth, that she felt like giving up on it. Before this horse had been slaughtered, or died of old age, it must have been positively ancient. She gazed enviously at the table across from her where an Orc was enjoying a plateful of live cockroaches and a glass of curdled milk. She set her hunk of horse meat back down on her plate and looked around the restaurant at the other patrons. There was much to see and hear, if one paid attention. Really there was much to see and hear even if one didn't—the strident voices of Orcs had a way of making themselves heard, especially when shouting, as they did whenever they fought with each other. And fights broke out every five minutes or so, over various things. One Orc had gotten angry because her food wasn't served quickly enough, so she'd punched a waiter in the face, knocking out a few of his teeth. Another two Orcs had fought because one had accidentally stepped on the other's entrée in a drunken dance over the tabletops. There were squabbles over possessions and money, of course. Those were especially common and almost unworthy of attention. Then there was an Orc who clawed another Orc's face simply because the former thought the latter was ugly. Smooth skin, clear eyes, symmetrical features… Revolting. In those days, quite an opposite look was prized. There were contests for this sort of thing, and the current standard of attractiveness was a young Orc named Gothmog, known for his alluringly puffy, lumpy face, his irresistibly gravelly voice, and his unique, seductive gait. He'd been voted Sexiest Orc Alive twice now.

Ulga had her chance to clock someone too, but ugliness had nothing to do with it. The clockee wasn't ugly, and Ulga most definitely wasn't. Males tended to find irresistible her feminine charms of sparse stringy hair, dark yellow eyes that matched her teeth, powerful rippling muscles, and thick rough swamp-green skin that had an enchanting way of turning inky blue at the cheeks when she blushed. Most attractive of all, however, was her flat stomach. Orcs of both sexes quite enjoy mating and consequently the females are pregnant more often than not. (This accounts for Orcs' ability to multiply quickly despite their collective talent for killing and maiming each other.) Ulga was a bit more selective than most in her standards for a mate; she'd never actually been pregnant. So when a young male Orc with a bald head, warts, and unsettlingly orange eyes zeroed in on her (she saw the eyes light up to an almost impossible level of brightness when they met hers) she suppressed a sigh—she knew what was coming and she wasn't really in the mood.

Well, here he was.

"Did it hurt," he began, "when you fell from—"

"I'm going to stop you right there." Ulga's interruption was firm but gentle. "I'm really not interested."

The Orc stared at her blankly as if not quite comprehending what was happening, blinking his brilliant eyes stupidly. "If I told you that you had a beautiful body," he began again, "would you hold—"

"No, thank you."

"—it against me?"

"No."

Ulga's admirer was beginning to look angry. The glowing orbs were just small slits of bright light now. "No? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I came here for food, not procreation." She gestured to her plate.

"You're turning me down?"

"Yes."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Currently the only thing wrong with me is that I'm trying to eat and some dunghill _rat_ keeps interrupting me." Never mind that the food was inedible. Ulga needed an excuse and this Orc was seriously getting on her nerves.

The Orc snarled ferociously at her, baring pointed teeth. He was literally frothing at the mouth, and the bubbly saliva dribbled down his chin as he spoke. "There'll be a lot more wrong with you when this 'dunghill rat' is through with you."

The Orc leapt right onto the table (and the horse meat) with a jarring crash, wrapping his grimy, oily hands around Ulga's throat. In a swift motion, she stood and pried his hands away from her, slapped him hard across the face, and pushed him backward off the table. He fell onto his back and lay on the ground for a moment struggling to breathe, as Ulga scrambled around the side of the table toward him. Rapidly, he jumped to his feet and began charging toward her like an angry bull. Nothing daunted, Ulga dodged out of his way, spun, and threw a powerful punch to his carotid. He fell heavily on his face.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go finish my meal now," she informed him. This time, being unconscious, he didn't argue back.

* * *

Unfortunately, to preserve the wittiness of what she'd said, she had to keep eating the awful horse meat. Oh well. At least before she'd sat down again she'd had the foresight to quickly deposit her dinner glass under the Orc's broken and profusely bleeding nose. She was going to make a pudding out of it later. It would be fabulous.

Back in the present, as she picked at her desiccated food, she became aware of another altercation in the restaurant, between the two males at the table closest to her. She'd missed the beginning of the fight, being lost in thoughts of blood pudding, so she hadn't caught what it was about—by now the two Orcs seemed to be past the talking part of the fight and well into the physical part. As she watched, one of them let out a fearsome Orcish noise that there is really no name for, before slapping the other across the face so hard he fell to the ground unconscious. He then picked up his chair, lifted it above his head, let out another fierce cry, and whacked the already prostrate Orc multiple times with it. When he was satisfied with his work, he hollered in a deafening voice that cut through the rest of the restaurant noise, "LOOKS LIKE MEAT'S BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS!" This is a traditional phrase for Orcs, and it means, "Guys, come help me eat this guy I just killed!"

There were plenty to answer the call. Ulga, who had the luck of being the nearest Orc to the table where the fight had happened, got one of the prime positions, where she could eat the intestines. They tasted so profoundly delicious after the horse meat.

The problem was that as she was eating she began thinking. She thought about the poor, dead Orc whose innards she was relishing the flavor of. He'd been a living, breathing being with thoughts and feelings only a few minutes ago. Was she being callous? Was what she was doing right now… _wrong?_

Well, it wasn't like she'd been the one who killed him. He was dead now, whether anyone ate his remains or not. She kept eating.

And yet…would _Humans_ do this? She didn't know all the particulars about any of their many different cultures, but she'd bet that most of them frowned upon this sort of thing. She imagined what the cute man she'd seen a few days ago in Anórien would think of her if he could see her right now. She imagined the pinched, disgusted expression that might form on his beautiful features. She looked down at the half-eaten length of intestine in her hands. Suddenly her behavior struck her as just a mite uncivilized.

Oh, but this Orc's guts were just so _scrumptious_!

She finished her meal, but carried those same _consuming_ thoughts with her as she rode her Warg down the grey, dusty road to her dwellings, a small cave at the rocky foot of a mountain of the Ephel Dúath. When she arrived, she noted with some surprise that the ill-fitting, ramshackle door over the cave's entrance was slightly ajar. She pushed it further open and was suddenly face to face with another Orc.

She sighed in mingled relief and annoyance. She knew this one. "Gorbra, what are you doing here?"

Gorbra, an extremely pale-skinned Orc with an exceptionally wide nose and mouth and sprinkles of tiny grey freckles over her cheeks, was the closest thing Ulga had to what a Human might call a "friend". Gorbra put her hand over her hugely bulging stomach. "I was hungry…"

"There's not much food here."

"I noticed." It appeared the part of the cave that served as a pantry had been ransacked. "Were you on another of your expeditions?"

"Yes."

"Ulga, it's…getting ridiculous."

"What makes you say that?" asked Ulga in an offended tone.

Gorbra gestured to the space around her. "I mean…look at this…stuff."

Ulga looked. "Isn't it neat?" The small cave was filled almost to capacity with various mysterious-looking objects. Ulga thought of her habit of sneaking into empty houses in the dead of night and taking things, and for the first time she realized that might technically be stealing. She bit her lip uneasily at the thought. At least none of the things she'd stolen were important, like a horse would be. At least…she hoped they weren't.

"It's not neat," said Gorbra. "It's stupid."

"If you want food from me maybe you shouldn't call my things stupid, especially when you don't even know what any of them are. Just a thought."

"Do _you_ know what any of them are?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," said Ulga.

She took an object off a rudely built shelf and held it up. "Do you see this?" Her eyes were wide and glowing. Her cheeks were beginning to turn blue. "It's a _book_." She said that last word with reverence. "Some Gondorian Humans like to sit and stare at them when they have nothing better to do."

Gorbra didn't see why anyone of any species would want to stare at such a flat, flimsy, unimpressive-looking thing. She snatched it from Ulga and threw it into the fire, laughing at the blaze it made. "I'd much rather stare at _that!_ " she cackled.

Ulga stared at Gorbra in shock and anger. "Why…"

With her pudgy, clumsy hands Gorbra picked up an old vase that had been resting on a different shelf. Ulga had replaced its original wildflowers, which had long since died and rotted, with dry, prickly weeds, being unable to find any actual flowers growing near her home.

"No, don't—!" Ulga began, but it was too late. Gorbra had dropped the vase, and with a piercing crash it shattered all over the cave floor, into a mess of broken shards and dirty water.

Gorbra cackled again, clapping her huge hands with glee. "This is fun!" she screeched, reaching up for another object.

Ulga's hand was suddenly around her wrist. "No," said Ulga forcefully. "If the only thing you came here to do was make messes and destroy my things, you can leave."

Gorbra sighed heavily. "You're no fun," she groaned, giving in without grace.

Suddenly Ulga had an idea.

"I have an idea," said she. There was a tiny trickle of a stream that fed a myriad of little shallow puddles only a couple paces away from the entrance of her cave. The stream and especially the puddles would likely be well frozen over by now.

"Come with me," she said, tightening her hand around Gorbra's wrist and towing her outside.

"Do you see this?" asked Ulga, gesturing grandly to the forlorn, empty space surrounded by rocks.

"Yeah…?" said Gorbra in her usual unimpressed tone.

"Watch," instructed Ulga.

She bent, loosening a sheet of ice from the nearest puddle. With a quick, powerful movement of her arm she sent it careening towards the rock face. The crystalline crash it made was impressive, as all the little glistening shards burst and rained down onto the ground.

Gorbra's eyes glazed over.

Ulga took another sheet of ice and handed it to Gorbra. "You try it now," she said. "It's fun."

She accepted the piece of ice almost solemnly, and took a moment to concentrate before winding up and spiking it forcefully onto the ground. The ice exploded and she jumped up and down cheering and giggling at high volume.

"Did you see that?! Did you see that?!" her shrieks of joy were almost painfully piercing. "Let's do that again!"

So the two of them had a dandy time laughing and hurling all the ice sheets at the ground and against the rock face, watching them break and hearing over and over that full, satisfying shattering sound echo against the uneven rocks. When there was no more ice left to shatter, the two Orcs sat down on a ledge overlooking the road, still giggling.

"Have you got rid of your destructive energy now?" asked Ulga.

"Not really," said Gorbra, smiling cheerfully. "And I'm still hungry."

"I'm sorry, that's something I can't help you with right now. Have you ever thought of actually…obtaining your _own_ food?"

"Okaaay," Gorbra whined, petulant but accepting defeat.

They sat in silence for a short time, and Gorbra's expression turned uncharacteristically thoughtful. "Hey, if you really need to spy on Humans, why don't you just go down South and find some Haradrim? They might be slightly less likely to slaughter you than the Tarks are."

"I could, and I have a few times. But they're not as interesting; they're too much like us."

"But that's a good thing."

"I guess."

"Well _I_ guess I'll go obtain my own food now." Gorbra rose and picked a safe path down the hill to the road below, heading home.

As she walked along the road, thinking wistful thoughts of gourmet roast dung of Fell Beast, she failed to notice that she was not alone. Another Orc was making his way home as well, on a side road that met hers. He wasn't paying an excessive amount of attention to his surroundings either, being filled with thoughts of the enjoyable time he'd just had hunting bats (an Orcish pastime). Both Orcs were walking fast, and Ulga watched from above as they collided roughly with each other.

In half a moment they were at each other's throats. Pulling, kicking, biting, punching, scratching. Ulga observed the fight with little concern, thinking it would blow over soon enough and the two of them would walk away none the worse off, except for the addition of a few shallow cuts and bruises. But then she saw Gorbra pull a small, rough dagger out of her pocket, wielding it high above her head, rather as if she meant to use it. But the other Orc was faster. Instantaneous as a lightning strike, a dagger of his own was out of his pocket and in Gorbra's chest.

Gorbra screamed, a raw, feral scream of pain and rage, but before she crumpled onto the ground she raised her huge arm and thrust her own dagger squarely between the eyes of her opponent, twisting it sharply with one last savage scream. He fell backwards and she fell over on top of him. By the time Ulga reached them they were both dead.

She was surprised at the pain she felt as she stood helplessly over them. This was senseless, meaningless. And deaths like these happened every day, every moment here. Hadn't she just seen one back at the restaurant only a couple hours ago? All at once she was completely and profoundly tired of this place she had been born and lived in her entire life. She thought of its ever-present atmosphere of filth and animalism, and it disgusted her in a way it never had before. She wished violently to be somewhere else, someone else, even. She suddenly realized…she wanted to be a Human.

There wasn't any help for that, was there? There was no way to change what she was, and she knew no Human would ever accept her. She was an Orc, an enemy. She knew very well what they all thought of her kind. To Humans every Orc was exactly the same, and equally deserving of the same fate—a violent death. Of course she couldn't blame them for thinking the way they did. They were right, after all. Mostly. Oh, what could she do? How could she cope with this most impossible of wishes?

Ulga came back to the present with a jolt. Here she was thinking about herself when there were two dead Orcs at her feet, one of which had been her closest…acquaintance.

A few minutes later she was shoveling the rocky, hard-packed, frozen soil by the roadside with all her might. She worked quickly, hoping she could finish her task before anyone passed by and saw her. Passersby might be curious. Or hungry. When two large, long, and reasonably deep holes were dug, she wiped the sweat from her brow and then got to work carrying Gorbra's hefty body to the first one. Once Gorbra was carefully lowered into her grave, it was the male Orc's turn. Ulga hoped they wouldn't mind being buried in such close proximity. They had killed each other after all. But maybe their spirits, if they had any, would make up with each other in time. Ulga liked to think that. Maybe spirits, once they weren't attached to the bodies and brains of Orcs or Humans or Trolls or any other kind, were more harmonious, more similar than different.

Once she'd done her best to cover the two bodies with the displaced soil and then pack it down so the roadside looked as undisturbed as possible, she decided the next order of business was to find some flowers. She was basing all this on a vague memory of a Human funeral she'd seen from a distance once. Flowers didn't really grow in Mordor, but she was able to find a few very scraggly weeds nearby. They didn't seem quite the thing, but they would have to do.

Next was a funeral song. Music was also scarce in Mordor, and among Orcs in general, but she felt a song simply must be sung; she wanted to send these two souls off as respectfully as possible, and she knew a dirge was one of the most important ingredients, if the funeral she'd seen was anything to go by.

She racked her brain for something singable.

Try as she might to think of something more sophisticated, the only snatch of music she could remember was something the goblins of Goblin Town in the Misty Mountains had sung when she'd visited that one unforgettable time. (She'd found and "adopted" Warg during this visit; but that's a story for another chapter.)

"Clash, crash. Crush, smash," she rasped out dismally,

 _Hammer and tongs. Knocker and gongs._

 _Pound, pound, far underground._

 _Ho, ho! my lad._

Ulga had an uncomfortable feeling that this song wasn't at all the thing.

She stopped singing and laid the weeds on the graves, even watering them with a few tears. At least she'd gotten that part right.

She supposed that concluded the funeral. With slumped shoulders she sat on the cold ground and began to consider what to do next. Warg trotted over while she was considering and lay down beside her. The wolf sighed deeply and started quietly considering too, in an effort to be helpful. Ulga rested her head on Warg's shoulder. She felt that she simply couldn't stay where she was anymore. There was nothing to tie her here, really, except for her cave and all the Human Things she had collected there. It would hurt to leave them, but she thought it might hurt more not to. And she could choose a few small, extra special mementos to take with her. Her fingers closed around the little object in her pocket.

"Warg…" she said slowly. "How would you feel about leaving? For good this time."

Warg considered again for a moment. Then she growled something gently in Warg-speak and licked Ulga's face with her enormous forked tongue. Ulga pulled a handkerchief (like the Humans used) out of her other pocket and wiped off the wolf slobber, smiling a little.

"Alright, then. We're going to find the White Wizard."


	3. The Tower, the Blizzard, and the Forest

Hey friends, Happy New Year and thanks so much for making it to this third chapter! I apologize for taking so long with it, I've got no excuse except that writing is hard. Extra special thanks to eschscholzia and Grey Day for the reviews they left last chapter :)

Chapter Two Recap: Ulga returns home, but not before beating up a creeper at a restaurant and feasting on a dead Orc's intestines. After witnessing two other Orcs, one of which is her friend, murder each other, she abruptly decides that maybe Mordor isn't such a nice place after all, and leaves.

* * *

 **Chapter Three: The Tower, the Blizzard, and the Forest**

Once upon a time there was a book. A series of them, actually. It was never known by what mysterious way or accident our previously mentioned White Wizard came to possess copies of them, but he did. When in doubt, blame the Valar. Or Sauron, it's far more likely he had something to do with it. The Valar would probably have foreseen the damage such books could do to one such as Saruman, and would not have willfully put him in the path of such temptation. But was Sauron really so farsighted that he could have known the ripple effect Saruman's possession of these books would have on him, on countless lives, on their world, on other worlds? Surely not…

But back to the books themselves. There were stories in them, and these stories told of all sorts of wonderful and curious things. Some of the most curious were Rings, Rings that could instantly transport anyone who touched them to other worlds.

Magical Rings had always been a bit of a sore subject for poor Saruman. Galadriel had one. Elrond had one. Círdan, who for some unknown reason had wanted to part with his, had given it to Gandalf the Grey instead of giving it to the obvious person, the Head of the White Council. Saruman wasn't sure if he'd ever get over the smart of it. Since no one would give _him_ a Ring, well then, he'd just have to make his own. He'd always been intrigued by the idea of instantaneous travel through space and time, and he knew none of the others' Rings had the power to make such things possible. Perhaps, like a palantír, such a Ring could be worked with, controlled by those of strong mind, until it had the power to take a bearer to any place and time he wished. Besides furnishing endless food to satisfy Saruman's curiosity, it would also make everyone envious, and although he might not have admitted it to himself in quite these words, he dearly loved making people envious of him. He liked to be thought grand and impressive.

Unfortunately for Saruman, there were no very clear instructions for how to go about recreating these kinds of special Magical Rings with teleportation powers, as the aforesaid books were chiefly written to tell lovely stories and not to give power hungry Wizards terrible ideas.

But the narrator is getting ahead of herself. Saruman? Power hungry? No, he was a good and kind and wise Maia, sent to Middle-earth to help defeat evil, and up until very recently he would have said he was doing a pretty decent job, if he and the White Council, of which he was the head, did say so themselves. But he was still wise, and very learned in the ways of wizardry and magic and lore. And, to get back on topic, he also knew some things about Eregion and the Second Age and the making of Magic Rings. In theory.

In practice it turned out a bit trickier. The first pair he forged did nothing at all except look pretty, and the second ended up turning everything it touched into dust. The third pair was only a little better; it was able to transport a wearer to and from the Southfarthing of the Shire (where Saruman had first secretly discovered the wonders of pipeweed, so the attempt was not a total loss). He had a fourth pair of rings he'd just recently made and he planned to test them out soon, but first he had more important things to think about.

Yes, Saruman was deep in thought. This really wasn't an unusual state for him, but he was more troubled than he'd been in a very long time. Gandalf and his little friend Radagast had stopped by recently, and they had had news of a very serious nature for him. Or Gandalf had, anyway. Saruman didn't know why Gandalf insisted on making that bumbling, half-witted Radagast part of things. Gandalf always liked to include the wrong people. Incompetent, incapable people, the kind that couldn't be trusted to get things right. He probably only did that to get people to like him. Saruman had to admit, he was extremely good at that. It confused and irked him.

But back to the news. They had told him something unexpected and terrible, almost too terrible to speak aloud. Impossible. Saruman had been so sure that the Evil had been vanquished long ago. But although Gandalf sometimes got on his last nerve, he trusted him. Most of the time. And this time he believed him. The concern and urgency and _fear_ in his grey-blue eyes had been too raw and real not to. Not that Gandalf was ever insincere—about important things.

Perhaps in the deep parts of Saruman's heart and mind where he kept the things he didn't like to think about, he'd actually suspected this all along. Had that small but unconquerable, niggling feeling that something very important was not right. That something, or some _one,_ which should not have existed very much did, although he was keeping himself hidden. For now. After all, the Ring, the One Ring, was still in existence somewhere, wasn't it? Even if it was at the bottom of the sea, forever out of the hands of the malicious being that had created it, still it would go on existing. And as long as it existed, could it be that its maker would go on existing too, in some form or another?

He wondered if it was even possible to eradicate evil. Always, it seemed, some of it remained and in secret it regenerated itself.

If Saruman looked even deeper, he knew that it wasn't just his concern about the safety of Middle-earth as a whole that worried him. He was worried about how this situation reflected on him as a leader. He was the leader of the White Council, the most powerful of the Istari! He'd been sent to banish the evil! Everyone thought he (well, technically Isildur) had! This made him look bad. Would the Valar take his power from him? What if they gave it to Gandalf?

He chuckled to himself. _That_ was truly impossible.

He immediately felt guilty for laughing. The situation was too dire for laughter. A meeting of the White Council (of which he was the head) must occur, and soon.

Saruman gazed out his tower window at the bleak winter landscape. Some might have thought its whiteness beautiful, pure and soft, unspotted. Now, to him, it looked treacherous and dishonest.

In truth it _was_ treacherous. The day had dawned still and quiet, the thick snow on the ground seeming to mute all sounds to an unsettling degree. Not a single flicker of movement could be seen apart from the faint glimmering of morning stars. But with the daylight the low, grey clouds had moved in and the wind had shattered the stillness. It was picking up at an alarming rate now, beginning to send drifts of snow whirling up from the ground, moaning and sighing against the walls and windows, seeking an entry through the impenetrable glass and stone. The trees were becoming harder to see. He lapsed into thoughtfulness again for a long while, gazing unseeingly out the window.

Some minutes, or maybe hours later, as the darkness of night was coming on and binding itself with the darkness of the storm, Saruman was shaken from his reverie. It was like the soft tickle of a feather on the nose of a sleeper, hardly noticeable yet foreign and irritating. It roused him. There was a presence near. Impossible, but unmistakable. He glanced wildly about the room. No, the presence wasn't quite that near, although the glancing light from the fire and the candelabras did create strange living, dancing shapes against the gleaming black walls. The presence seemed to be coming from outside. But that didn't make any sense. Any living thing with a particle of sense or survival instinct wouldn't be out in a storm of this magnitude. He rose and looked out the window, but it was useless. Nothing at any distance further than a few feet could be seen anymore through the eddying snow.

Suppose some poor half dead traveller from Rohan or Dunland had got caught far away from home in such a nasty storm and needed shelter from the cold, or food, or medical aid? He hastened out of the room and down the long, dark staircase two at a time, to the landing and across the spacious foyer. He barely paused at the dark, heavy double doors before unlocking them and throwing them open.

He was met with such a blast of wind and snow that he was nearly knocked over. He squared his shoulders and pressed on, down the flight of many steps that descended from the front door. Freezing snow and wind lashed him in the face so hard he could barely breathe. His eyes were burning and his ears were already beginning to ache with the fierce cold and the pressure of the howling gusts. Ugh, confound these stairs, why were there so many of them? The Men of Númenor had made some beautiful things, certainly, but they weren't always _functional_ , he thought with irrational irritation.

Once the arduous task of getting down all the steps had been faced and completed, he had to find the individual he was trying to help, and that proved much more difficult. His instincts told him someone was near, but they weren't sharp enough to inform him which direction that person might be. He was afraid of getting lost, and even if he found the person he was seeking, what use would it be if he couldn't lead him back to the safety of the tower?

Still, he had to try. He would not let someone die practically on his own doorstep. He stretched a hand out in front of him, feeling his way blindly forward. He kept moving in this way, perhaps for five or ten minutes, until—was that a dark, towering shape he saw through the gloom, just a few feet ahead?

A sudden, powerful wave of anxious foreboding swept over him. Unconsciously his other hand crept into a pocket of his robes where he kept his two newly forged Rings, one yellow and one green, just as an enormous hand reached down toward him through the swirling sleet, and with horror he realized it had claws. Now three things happened at once, or in extremely quick succession: the nightmarish hand clasped Saruman's still outstretched hand, jostling him slightly; the skin of Saruman's other hand just brushed the cold metal of a Ring; and the storm disappeared.

Maybe it wasn't the storm that disappeared but rather he that disappeared from the storm. Time seemed to stop and everything grew quiet and warm. He tried to move but he couldn't, even though it seemed that his whole body was moving, floating maybe? Descending? He'd lost all sense of direction, and still the horrid clawed hand held his fast, like a vise. His unmoving eyes were locked on it while everything else whirled around sickeningly in his peripheral vision. Though the hand had bits of snow stuck to it, he could see that it was an unattractive green, the same color as the Dead Marshes way over east, wherever east was now, and that the claws were thick, a sickly yellow color spotted and stained with dirt.

He supposed he could conclude that these Rings worked. Although testing them out had not gone quite according to plan; he hadn't intended to take any monsters with him, for one thing. He also hadn't planned on experiencing such terrible motion sickness. When the disorienting whirling stopped after what had probably been less then a minute and he regained the ability to move freely, he yanked his hand out of the clawed one, doubled over, and began vomiting on the ground. Ground! Yes, there was an actual ground under him now. That was some comfort. It was green and grassy, quite wholesome looking. He looked up. He seemed to be in a forest dotted with pools of water. At the moment his brain was having trouble furnishing any very descriptive adjectives for the place. It was just…nice.

"Do you…need…help…?" said a husky, sleepy voice near him, somehow both gruff and soft.

The monster! Oh no, he'd forgotten his staff. Oh well, he was too tired to remember how to use it anyway… It would be nice to let his eyes close, wouldn't it? This was such a calm, green, Fangorny place, Fangorny but lighter and younger and older all at once, a nice place, a place where nothing bad could happen. (Ah, there were the adjectives.) Surely all the things that were wrong, all the things he had to worry about and fix, would keep while he took some rest.

The owner of the husky, sleepy voice had the same idea, and it promptly shut its eyes and fell asleep. So did the large furry creature by its side. The three of them could have possibly gone on that way for years, if there were any way to measure the time. Maybe they already had. But one of the party, we won't say which, was snoring considerably louder than the others. And this snoring gradually grew in volume until it was so loud it woke up the entire party, snorer included.

They looked about them for a while. When the owner of both the clawed hand and the husky, sleepy voice (it was, of course, Ulga) noticed that a strange old man, a _sharkû_ with long hair and a beard, had been staring at her for a length of time that struck her as rather awkward, she ventured to speak.

"Who are you?" she asked simply. Her brain felt abnormally foggy, like there were many important things she should be remembering but couldn't recall at all. She only felt able to construct very simple sentences.

"I…cannot remember."

"I can't remember who I am either! How strange."

A long pause.

"I know!" crowed Ulga. "I'm a Wizard!"

The _sharkû_ looked doubtful, but he said nothing and continued to scrutinize her. It looked like the wheels in his head were turning. There was a short silence, which he broke presently. "What is that?" he asked, pointing to something behind Ulga.

She turned and glanced at the immense hairy thing lying on the ground. It had already fallen back asleep. "Oh, that? That's an Orc. You can tell by the snoring."

"I see."

"You mean you hear."

"Of course I am here, where are you?"

Ulga was confused.

Saruman had already begun to overcome the odd, mind-numbing effects of the Wood. Suddenly it all came back to him with a jolt. _He_ was the Wizard!

That was…an _Orc_?!

And a _Warg_?!

No.

How?

 _How_ didn't matter, the important thing was to get them back where they came from, one at a time. The Orc seemed bizarrely harmless now, but he was sure that would all change once it remembered itself. It and its wolf would try to kill him, and he was outnumbered and weaponless.

"I was looking for the _White_ Wizard," said the Orc quietly, to itself it seemed. "I remember that now." Its voice became sad. "I wanted him to understand. I wanted him to turn me into a Human." It began to cry, and Saruman thought it looked unnatural and almost grotesque with its blue-rimmed eyes and quivering, working face under the green light of the canopy.

" _I_ am that Wizard," he began slowly, "and you must—"

"You?!" broke in the Orc. "You're just a weird old man who won't stop staring at me!" It started crying harder.

Saruman immediately averted his eyes, feeling strangely awkward. He wasn't at all used to dealing with disoriented, crying Orcs. He didn't even know the vermin _could_ cry.

"Neither of us can think clearly in this Wood; we must leave it," he said in a tone that did not invite discussion.

The Orc decided to discuss anyway. "I won't go back. I won't!"

"You will." Saruman's voice changed, growing soft and smooth, but none the less commanding for that. "You will take my hand" (he was careful to check his inclination to shudder as he said this) "and we will jump back into the pool from whence we came." He held out his hand in a manner he hoped was inviting.

"Which pool?"

"The one from whence we came." He was getting impatient now. The longer it stayed there the greater the chance it would recall what it was and what he was.

"And which one is that?"

Was he imagining the challenge he heard in its voice?

"This one," he said confidently, motioning to a glassy, perfectly round pool at his feet.

"That's not it," it objected.

Saruman ground his teeth. "Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yes. It is." He was almost on the point of just walking up to the Orc, forcing the Green Ring on its fat finger and pushing it over into whichever pool happened to be nearest, and letting whatever poor world got stuck with it deal with it. Of course, then he'd be stuck here for an eternity with a demonic wolf, so maybe it wasn't the best idea.

"Are you sure it's not this one?" motioning to its left. "Or this one? Or this one or this one or this one or this one or this one…" Now it was running and jumping through the pools, chanting all the way.

Who knew how big this Wood was, how many pools it contained. Maybe they were infinite. Saruman looked and felt uncharacteristically doubtful again. Which one _was_ it? They were all exactly identical. And meanwhile the Orc was splashing on down the line—"or this one or this one or this one"—and soon it would be out of sight.

"WAIT!" yelled Saruman in his especially big, booming, authoritative voice, the one that he only used on special occasions. The Orc didn't, so he had to run after it, pulling the Green Ring out of his pocket and onto his finger. If he had been any place other than there, thinking quite clearly, he would never have done so.

Warg snarled. She'd been awake and watching the two of them converse through half-closed eyes for a few minutes now, and she trusted the stranger not a bit. She hesitated for just a few moments before jumping up and charging after him.

Meanwhile Ulga had paused in front of a pool. "This one," she said dreamily. " _This_ one is the most beautiful of all. I—"

Suddenly Saruman came crashing through the trees, running as if pursued. Warg came crashing through the trees next, pursuing. Before either of them could stop, they both crashed into Ulga, and so all three of them toppled headlong into the pool and vanished from the Wood.

* * *

There might be just a bit of a reference to C.S. Lewis's book _The Magician's Nephew_ in this chapter, maybe.


	4. New Orc In Town

Hello, kind reader! If you remembered the existence of this story at all after January I'm sure you thought I'd either given up on it or died (unless you follow me on Tumblr, in which case you'd know that I'm definitely not dead but I am lazy). Thanks so much for your patience, and especially for just continuing to read, it means a lot to me! Extra special shoutout to canadiangold, eschscholzia, FebruarySong, and a guest for their reviews! (Urrgh it really cramps my style that I can't use multiple exclamation points in a row on here. Each of you reviewers has been so lovely and you deserve multiple exclamation points, darn it!) Anyway, here's Chapter Four.

Chapter Three Recap: Saruman is interrupted from brooding in his tower during a blizzard by the arrival of Ulga. Intending to rescue the snow-caked traveller, Saruman inadvertently transports her, her Wolf, and himself, to a magical and mind-addling forest. Other strange events ensue in this forest, until all three of our characters collide into each other and fall in a pool.

* * *

 **Chapter Four: New Orc In Town (Or, Saruman's Maia Moment)**

First they were falling, then they were drowning, then flying. It was impossible to make sense of their surroundings because everything changed too fast. There was still the maddening paralysis, a side effect of the Rings. Saruman knew from his reading that the originals on which these were based had not had this side effect. Well, these could do what they were intended to, and he supposed that was the important part. When he got back home he'd have to see about tinkering with them a little, trying to fix this flaw, but at the moment there was (literally) nothing he could do. He was uncomfortably sandwiched between a loathsome, smelly Orc and its equally loathsome, smelly dog. The animal's enormous mouth gaped open—it had been just about to close on him before they all fell—and he thought the odor that emanated from it was practically enough to make his beard curl.

By the time the vortex or whatever it was had spit them out and onto solid ground, Saruman's stomach was churning and roiling again. He turned and doubled over, but there was nothing left in his stomach to expel. It heaved weakly and he gagged, but that was the worst of it.

Ulga looked torn and hesitant. She'd taken a step towards him, as if wanting to help, but then it seemed she'd remembered what he was and what she was, and she stepped back again, not wishing to frighten him. He hadn't seen her yet; he was looking the other way. While he was composing himself, she took a few steps forward and looked around her.

She couldn't frame words, either in any of the dialects of Orkish she spoke or in the more complicated and nuanced Common Tongue, to describe what met her eyes and ears. It was completely, utterly, foreign and incomprehensible.

It seemed that there were buildings, buildings, buildings, as far as the eye could see. None of them looked like any buildings she had ever seen. The near ones were so ornate, and all painted such funny colors! Some of them blue, or pink, or yellow even. Others were more sensible, constructed of red bricks. The ones on this street were fairly small and orderly, bordered by prim green lawns and bushes, but if she looked above and beyond them, in the distance, she could see in stark contrast many-windowed towers, grey and imposing. Ulga had seen a tower or two in her day, but never so many in one place before, and never any like these.

The sky was blue and the sun was fairly close to its zenith, indicating the time to be likely either late morning or early afternoon, and there was a faint breeze, a little too chilly for comfort. Our trio was situated in a shady space between the two houses at the end of the street, on the top of a steep hill. Far away in almost the opposite direction of the towers Ulga could see a body of water dotted with a few little boats. It made her think of the things she'd heard about the ocean, that far-off glimmering thing of legend and of dreams. Could it be? She so wanted to see the ocean.

But the varieties of buildings and even that tantalizing glimpse of blue water were not the most extraordinary things to see, not at all. If Ulga craned her neck around the corner to look at the street perpendicular to the one she was on, she could see that there were giant metal… _things_ of all shapes and sizes and colors, just careening down the road! Careening down the road fit to crash into each other and the buildings and the figures walking around. But they never did. The careening metal things seemed to be sentient, to know not to crash. The ones coming stayed on one side of the road, and the ones going stayed on the other, and the figures stayed on the raised edges of the road. But even the Careening Metal couldn't hold her attention long, because now she was too busy staring at the figures.

There were Humans here! In fact most, maybe all of the figures, appeared to her to be Human. One or two of them seemed to lead tiny, furry dogs on ropes, how cute!

It was then that her mind without warning yanked her out of the present and she remembered everything that had very recently happened, and she had to sit down. Her head spun and her knees felt weak (hence the abrupt sitting down), although both these sensations could have also been caused by the sun. Even indirect sunlight didn't always agree with her very well, although thinking back, the sunlight in that forest with all the big puddles hadn't made her feel like this.

At first this day had been like a dream, the kind in which things happened and one instantly moved from place to place without thinking or questioning why or how. But this had been no dream, the memory of it was coming back too sharp, and here she was just whirling around to Sauron knew what kinds of places. And that strange _sharkû_ with the weak stomach kept following her! It was creepy. And however was she supposed to get back to where she'd been now?

But did she even want to? She'd been stuck in the middle of a blizzard, blinded, frostbitten, and searching for a Wizard who was probably no more than a rumor. Whereas this place seemed…nice? Well, not exactly, but it had Humans, and that was always a good thing. Not, however, always a safe thing, she recollected. She wondered if they'd try to kill her here.

Which brought her back to the most immediate question, which was to figure out what to do about the _sharkû_ …

Meanwhile Saruman was thinking that his most immediate question was to figure out what to do about the smelly Orc. But suddenly his thoughts were cut short and he forgot altogether about the smelly Orc and the smelly Wolf and the city and his entire past life and even his names. Something very strange happened, but before we detail this, we must first stop to explain something weird about Maiar.

Usually they are above the human foibles of lust and romance and whatnot, but occasionally one of them will fall in love. Of course they can't go about such a thing subtly or normally. To be fair, most Humans can't even do that. But with Maiar (and sometimes Elves), it's ten times worse. If the reader is familiar with the story of Melian (a Maia) and Elwë (an Elf, later known as Thingol), he might understand what the narrator is talking about. The two of them meet in a forest and lock eyes. They fall under a spell. Their eyes stay locked for an interminable amount of time, long enough for saplings to become full-grown trees. It sounds more awkward than romantic in this narrator's humble opinion, but to each their own. Their relationship apparently did not suffer any from the strangeness of that first meeting because they were married for an even more interminable amount of time, until Thingol was killed by dwarves over a dispute concerning a very pretty necklace. But that's a different story and now we've gotten off topic.

Right there, in an alley in a city called San Francisco, Saruman had a Maia Moment. The very ground beneath him shook (this was actually a small, naturally caused earthquake, but it added a wonderful effect). Across the street was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He couldn't breathe.

She was walking, quickly and with purpose. She was wearing a sweater with an ankle-length skirt and boots. Her skin was a healthy tan tone which brought out the clean, bright whiteness of her hair, wound into a pretty but practical looking bun just below the crown of her head. She might have been in her seventies.

Time slowed down. A Machine On Wheels in the part of the road nearest to where he stood on the sidewalk crawled slowly by. Music blared from somewhere inside it. _At laaaaaast…my looooove has come along…my lonely days…are over…and life is like a soooong…_

The Machine passed. He blinked.

He'd always thought people who fell in love foolish and weak. He'd never understood them. Why embarrass oneself in such a way? Why limit one's freedom? Why make oneself so vulnerable, why put oneself so at the mercy of another flawed being? It all seemed completely nonsensical, so of course he'd always believed himself well above it. But in the blink of an eye, in this odd, ugly place where he understood nothing, suddenly he understood everything.

His Maia Moment was different from Melian's. Instead of being rooted in place he moved, without thinking about it, without even realizing it. His body seemed to move for him. Before he knew it he was stepping into the street. She was moving too fast and he had to catch up with her, nothing else mattered. _Everything_ depended on this.

"Wait!" thundered Ulga in some odd hybrid of a bellow and a screech. There was a Careening Metal coming and the poor _sharkû_ was going to get hit, and she felt oddly protective of him, even if he was creepy. He seemed a bit touched, like he needed someone to look after him, and maybe she could help him.

With a bit of effort, she too rose and with wobbly legs darted into the road, although hers was a safer dart, looking both ways first and saving the actual darting part for when the one Careening Metal had passed, just missing the _sharkû_ as he obliviously strode in front of it.

Warg darted after her, just in front of a second Careening Metal, but miraculously all three of them made it across the street in one piece, quite alright except for their startled nerves at the reception of some loud honks from that second Careening Metal. Ulga glanced at it over her shoulder, quickly but closely. She did a double take. She could just see through the shiny bit at the front of the Careening Metal, the part she had at first glance taken for a large eye. But it wasn't an eye, it was a window, and instead of a pupil and an iris, she thought she saw the shapes of two Humans, their features partially obscured by the glare of the sun against the shiny surface. They must have been controlling the thing from inside, how fascinating! She tried to smile at them quickly, but the _sharkû_ was getting away and she had to hurry. She just caught sight of one of the Humans thrusting its hand out an opening in the side of the Careening Metal and pointing its middle finger at her before she moved along. What was that about, she wondered? Must be a form of greeting in these parts. She turned one more time to return the greeting and then sprinted to catch up with the _sharkû_ just as he was approaching the old woman.

The old woman had stopped walking and was staring at them with a sort of you-idiots expression on her face (if the reader will pardon the narrator's lack of ability to honestly describe the woman's expression any other way). She glanced each of them over with eyes that were both critical and apathetic (almost as if she were quite used to—and possibly even tired of—seeing traffic disrupted by old robed men accompanied by giant wolves and muscular goblin-like creatures) and then she turned her back to them as if this was all really too much nonsense that she didn't have time for, and began walking again.

"Excuse me," said Saruman in a voice straining to be high and lofty, but really with a painfully obvious and pathetic edge of desperation.

She turned again. The annoyance on her face was clear, she probably had things to do, but underneath was the faintest glint of curiosity in her steely grey eyes. She looked the motley crew over again, and now her expression was almost appraising.

Poor Saruman had never felt so awkward in his life. He had to say something to this wondrous creature, something that would sweep her off her feet. He couldn't live if he allowed her to get away. What to say what to say what to say—

"Good...morning," he choked out.

The woman did not look impressed. She regarded him again for a moment. Then she spoke in a quick cadence with a voice rather low and harsh, for a woman's: "What do you mean? Are you implying it is a good morning for you, or that it is a good morning for me? How would you even know if I'm having a good morning?" Her tone turned scathing. "Are you implying that it is a good morning to almost get hit by a car? Are you implying that it's a good morning to have no idea that it's not morning at all and is in fact afternoon?"

Saruman stopped and thought. He would have liked to say something along the lines of, _None of these, what I meant was that I love you_ , but he felt that wouldn't quite do. He knew nothing of the cultural practices of this place, but he would have guessed it was probably considered rather forward to declare passionate love for someone at a first meeting in most places in the universe, and he felt foolish enough as it was.

Oh! He should probably say something now, she was looking at him again. And with such beautiful eyes! Such a strong grey color! They reminded him of—Gandalf the Grey. Oh. That was an unpleasant association. And Gandalf reminded him of smoke rings, and before he could think he said something nonsensical about that what he meant was of course that it wasa very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors.

"I have no time to smoke this morning," returned the woman in a clipped, brisk tone. "I am taking my afternoon walk and then I need to pack for an… _adventure_ my grandson is arranging, and it's very difficult to find _anything_. That darn housekeeper…" She paused. "Why am I telling you this?"

Saruman's face fell. A grandson? Was this woman married?

"An adventure?" piped up Ulga in spite of herself. "Are you looking for companions—"

"Not you," said the woman.

Now Ulga's face fell.

"It's far too early in the year for Halloween costumes, especially ones that look like that," continued the woman bluntly. Ulga hadn't the faintest idea what that meant but it sounded like an insult and she felt offended. Still, she reasoned, this was all a big step up from almost getting killed every time a Human saw her. Here, though it seemed they might not all have nice expressions or kind things to say, so far at least one of them was looking at her and speaking to her instead of immediately reaching for a weapon, and this change was filling her with new courage and boldness. Maybe in time she could win them over.

Warg growled, just the slightest, quietest little warning of a growl, but it was enough for the woman to take half a step back. "That abomination of yours should be kept on a leash."

" _Excuse_ me, but—"

"Hush," said Saruman. He felt more in command of himself now, and had regained some of his usual imperiousness.

"Who are you to hush me?" demanded Ulga, caught up with her newfound boldness and momentarily forgetting her wish to be helpful.

Saruman looked up at her gravely. "I am Saruman the White Wizard, leader of the Istari of Middle-earth. You, creature of Morgoth, are not fit to exist in the same universe as this fair creature, let alone to look upon her and speak such disrespectful words as you, no doubt, were planning to speak. I will not allow it."

He bowed to the woman. "Forgive me, my lo—I mean, milady.

The woman began cackling. "I don't know what all this is, or what it's supposed to be, but it's extremely entertaining."

Meanwhile Ulga suddenly felt unsteady on her feet again. The whole world swirled again. She began to look even greener than usual. So she had made it to Isengard after all back in the snowstorm? The weird, rude, slightly senile old man, the _sharkû_ , was the White Wizard she'd been seeking so long? Impossible. He was lying, faking. It was impossible. The real White Wizard, the one that had lived so long in her imagination, was not like this. He was young-looking, soft and gentle, understanding. He did not judge. He also did not dart across dangerous roads in love-struck pursuit of old ladies. But on the other hand…who but a Wizard would have had the power to transport himself and her to completely other worlds? What if he hadn't been following her like she'd thought? What if she had been the one following him somehow? Maybe, due to the nature of whatever magic he was using, anyone who happened to be near him got accidentally transported along with him. Well, this was disappointing.

This whole day _had_ to be a nightmare, right? She knew she had already decided with herself earlier that it wasn't. But maybe this was an unusually sharp, clear, lifelike nightmare. Brought on by the trauma of witnessing Gorbra's death or the blizzard or something. None of today made a particle of sense, none of it was how things were supposed to be. She took a deep breath. Maybe if she just waited, she would wake up soon. Might as well watch the goings on. As the old woman had said, it could be extremely entertaining.

While she'd been mulling all of this over, Saruman had decided it was time for introductions to be made. He cleared his throat. "You may call me Curunír if you please, madam."

"Very well, Crooner-If-You-Please," said the woman dryly. "And what do you croon?"

"Your name, if you would be so kind as to tell me what it is." Saruman clearly thought he was being quite smooth.

The woman just looked amused. "Lucinda-If-You-Please," said she, curtseying mockingly.

Ulga cleared her throat, determined not to be overlooked. "And I am Ulga-If-You-Please." She followed her if-you-please with an awkward attempt at a curtsey, figuring both were important forms of introduction here.

Lucinda and Saruman both flashed dirty looks at her, but she wasn't done speaking yet. "And this is Warg-If-You-Please," pointing up at her Wolf. She glared at Warg until Warg seemed to get the hint and briefly lowered the front half of her body and ducked her head, the closest she could really get to a curtsey (it was still better than Ulga's).

"Well," said Lucinda, "it was quite, ah, smashing to meet you but I must be on my way." She turned briskly and began to stride back down the street.

Saruman was about to panic. She was getting away! "WAIT!" he called after her, using his special occasion voice for the second time that day.

She turned and glared at him. "Yes?"

"Where…are you going?"

"That, Crooner, is none of your business. Off with you."

"Are you sure I could not be of assistance to you?"

"Look, is there anything I can say to get rid of you?"

He was silent, trying to think of an answer that was true but wouldn't sound creepy. He supposed if this woman adamantly ordered him away, there would be nothing he could do; he would not follow her or inflict his presence on her against her will.

"You're _completely_ cracked, aren't you?" laughed the woman derisively. "You could be massively entertaining to have around. You seem extremely harmless, and tractable too. And we've got plenty of room… It's a crazy scheme, but I like it. Yes, I will go so far as to take you with me on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you… Afterwards I suppose I'll have to take you back to whatever nursing home you escaped from, but for now we can have some fun. Follow me to the house. I'm just coming back from my walk so it's not far."

This woman must have bewitched Saruman. He didn't often smile, and it was quite a sight to see him now. Even his bushy mustache and long beard and efforts not to appear undignified by smiling, couldn't stop or hide the smile on his face. He had no idea what Lucinda's plans were except that now they involved him, and that was good enough.

Ulga was not so happy; she didn't fancy being left behind in a completely foreign universe, by probably the only person who could get her back to the one she'd just left. But some instinct told her not to make a fuss just yet. Instead she and Warg quietly followed the pair down the raised edge of the street.

She gazed at the buildings on both sides of the street as she walked; she'd already gotten over some of the initial shock of being in such a new place and now she found that the look of them was growing on her. Really, they were much nicer than the ones she was accustomed to at her home, unembellished caves and lean-tos and things. These were painted in pretty pastels or rich, dark tones, and with their plots of short grass in front she decided they looked very classy, in an outlandish sort of way.

Lucinda was speaking now. "My weird grandson and his weird little friend have gotten it into their heads that they want to go on a wild goose chase for _Bigfoot_. Ridiculous. But the more I thought about it, the more appealing the idea sounded. The truth is, I'm bored with my life, been bored with it for years. I want a change of scenery. It didn't used to be this way. Oh, no. Back in the day, in my prime, things were different, and the stories I could tell, if I wanted! Ah, but ever since my daughter and her husband died and I got stuck with the kids, I've lived quite a boring life of it. So, back to my original point. We're all going Bigfooting for the summer, at least for a few weeks, probably longer. And of course there will be a bit of shopping, a bit of sightseeing. I may visit some old friends. The boys will be doing the actual Bigfooting, I should say. For my part, I think the whole thing is _ridiculous_ and I don't fancy traipsing about in the woods looking for things that don't exist. Idiots. But it gets them out of my hair for a little while. My two granddaughters are coming with us too."

For a few moments a confused silence reigned, and then Saruman managed to pick one of the many questions out of his head, the one that seemed most pertinent, and asked it: "May I enquire as to what a…Bigfoot might be?"

Lucinda stared at him for a long time. Saruman gazed back, spellbound, analyzing the subtle tints of blue and green in her eyes.

"You don't get out much, do you?" was her reply.

"I fail to see how that is relevant to my question."

She waved him off. "I'll have the boys explain it to you, they know much more of the nonsense than I do. Here we are!" She motioned to a rose colored house on their right, the most ornate one Ulga had seen so far, and the biggest.

Ulga's eyes were drawn to an enormous, stationary Careening Metal sitting on the side of the road, in front of the house. The front portion was shiny and black, and hitched onto the back of it somehow was a second section, even bigger than the first. She'd bet that was what they were taking on their journey in this bizarrely futuristic place; she hadn't seen anyone riding a horse or using a horse-drawn carriage yet. Maybe there were no horses here at all. Her stomach growled in disappointment.

Lucinda and the _sharkû_ were going up the walk now, and the _sharkû_ was saying something complimentary about the house, and Ulga, pleased at her own sneakiness, had crept up behind them. She was just about to slip into the front doorway after them when the door upset her plans by slamming in her face. Next she heard the distinct click of a lock being turned.

Ulga bristled. Now that was just mean. She turned around to find some other place to go, and then turned on her heel again and strode back up to the door. She raised her arm and pounded on the door. Anyone in the house would be sure to hear that. She waited. The door did not open. She pounded the door again, even louder. She knew they were in there, they'd have to let her in eventually. They weren't getting rid of her so easily. The grumpy _sharkû_ had brought her into this world, and the grumpy _sharkû_ would sure as heck have to either take her out of it or at the very least not abandon her for whatever length of time they both happened to be here. He _owed_ that to her, darn it. She was just about to hit the door so hard it broke, when a new thought occurred to her.

If she couldn't come with them on this mysterious journey by force, maybe she could by stealth. She looked hard at the enormous Careening Metal in front of the dwelling again. Probably the thing was locked. Probably someone would catch her before the journey was undertaken. Probably they would throw her out…if they were strong enough. She smiled almost evilly. She could take most Uruks. A little human wouldn't even be a challenge. (Unless there was a group of little humans and they were armed with futuristic weapons; she didn't allow herself to dwell too much on this possibility.)

A better thought immediately occurred, a nicer and more characteristic one. She could probably help them. Maybe there were things she could do that they couldn't; she was so strong. She would probably be an asset to them on this journey, whatever it was. Maybe she could plead her case instead of fighting them. Ulga had always preferred to love rather than fight, although of course if it came to fighting she had to say she didn't absolutely hate it…and she was good at it too. But fighting humans was different, something she'd never done before, never wanted to do. These humans owed her something, or at least one of them did (if the _sharkû_ _was_ human; he had claimed to be otherwise), and they had been uncivil. Still, she would be civil to them. She would prove herself to them. They expected certain things of her because she was an Orc, and she would not give them the satisfaction of having those expectations proved correct.

She stared at the Careening Metal for a few moments, eyes narrowed. If she crawled in would it sense her presence and start to move with her inside? Somehow she didn't think so, and the possibility of that happening seemed less dire and less likely than the possibility of being left behind. But how to get in? She circled it slowly, searching for the likeliest point of entry. She didn't like all those windows in the front of the first one, not at all. But the back one looked safer. It had windows, but they were much smaller. And there seemed to be a door-like thing, over on its right side. It was definitely locked, right?

Wrong! It swung out to greet her as she pulled the handle. She looked carefully behind her to make sure no one was watching, and then poked her head inside and looked around. She didn't see anyone there, but best to have a quick look around. For the first time that day she remembered the dagger in her tattered belt and drew it, just in case. She crept carefully inside. Warg followed, although it took her longer because she was a very large wolf, and the opening was too small for her to fit through without a lot of wriggling.

The place was actually quite spacious and nice. Varying shades of warm brown seemed the predominating color scheme. It reminded her of living quarters, rather than something a person would use only as transportation from one place to another. Directly across from her was a comfortable looking sofa, and to her right, behind a shelf with a large, shiny rectangular thing on it, was a large bed. She rounded the corner to her left. Now there was a little table on her right, and another, smaller door on her left. She'd investigate the door in a moment, but for now she moved straight ahead, towards the back of the enclosure, where there were interesting shelves, two on each side, large and padded. Beds, maybe? A few large, sturdy-looking bags and boxes were on each one.

Before she had time to consider this more, her thoughts were arrested by something else. She locked eyes with it, but its eyes were already locked on her. Establishing dominance. It wielded a dagger, just as she did. It was one of her kind, female. They both waited for a moment, watching to see what the other would do. Ulga didn't think she detected any overt hostility in her eyes, just wariness. The other Orc would defend herself if she had to, but _only_ if she felt she had to. She lowered her dagger, and the other Orc did the same, at the exact same time and speed too. Was she mimicking her movements? She felt a flicker of irritation.

"Stop that," she said. The Orc's mouth silently formed her words just as she said them. What kind of witchcraft… She approached the Orc again, and the Orc approached her. Ulga stared hard at her. Very slowly Ulga raised her left arm and reached it toward the other Orc's right. Their hands almost met. There was a pane of glass in between them. She hadn't noticed it before.

She started as if she'd been shocked. She backed up until she almost ran into Warg, who was absorbed in sniffing a big shiny black box jutting out from the wall. Warg looked up.

"Warg, we're _in_ there!"

Warg looked at her quizzically.

"Look at this! Come see yourself." She led the Wolf over to the mirror.

But Warg's reaction was hastier than hers. Warg growled and the Wolf in the glass seemed to growl back. Her hackles rose, and she waited only a moment before charging. Her teeth and nose clashed against the glass with a very loud clank. The impact of it was enough to shake the Careening Metal. She shook her head and then stepped back to stare at her reflection in the cracked glass.

"Well, that's not good," said Ulga. She thought she heard Warg sigh very quietly.

She turned her eyes almost unwillingly to her reflection in the mirror again, above the cracked portion. She supposed she should be delighted with what she saw. Certainly now she understood why the male Orcs seemed to like her so well. But she thought she had an idea of what most Humans found attractive, or even passable, and her face, her hair, her body, none of it was even close.

She turned away from the mirror. She twiddled her thumbs. Now that she had made the tour of the place, there didn't seem to be much else to do, and she was very tired. All the events of that day had caught up with her and what she wanted now was sleep. At first she thought to curl up on the big bed to the right of the door, but she found it was too soft and she couldn't get comfortable. She ended up sitting in the bathtub (it was what was behind the door she'd seen earlier) with her knees drawn against her chest and her head lolled against the wall, because the tub's coolness and hardness felt cavelike to her, and consequently more comfortable than anything else. Warg did not have Ulga's issue with soft bedding, so she sprawled out on the big mattress Ulga had rejected. In a matter of minutes, both were snoring.


End file.
